I cover science and public policy, environmental sustainability, media ideology, NGO advocacy and corporate responsibility. I'm executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project (www.GeneticLiteracyProject.org), an independent NGO, and Senior Fellow at the World Food Center's Institute for Food and Agricultural Literacy at the University of California-Davis. I've edited/authored seven books on genetics, chemicals, risk assessment and sustainability, and my favorite, on why I never graduated from college football player (place kicker) to pro athlete: "Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It". Previously, I was a producer and executive for 20 yeas at ABC News and NBC News. Motto: Follow the facts, not the ideology. Play hard. Love dogs.

As the Genetic Literacy Project reports, the GMO wars are escalating after the discrediting of a central pillar of the anti-crop biotechnology movement and the stumbling by a prominent science journal.

Gilles-Éric Séralini, author of the controversial rat study that claimed to show that genetically modified corn could lead to a high incidence of cancer, says he is contemplating suing the journal that published the study if it goes through with its stated plan to retract it.

In a stunning development, the editor of the Food and Chemical Toxicology, A. Wallace Hayes, sent the French scientist a letter dated November 19 saying that the paper will be withdrawn if Séralini does not agree to do it voluntarily. In either case, evidence of the discredited paper will be expunged from the journal’s database.

The French scientist, who works in Caen as founding director of anti-GMO research group called CRIIGEN, the Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering, said the journal’s criticisms of his work were “unacceptable,” adding, “Were FCT to persist in its decision to retract our study, CRIIGEN would attack with lawyers, including in the United States, to require financial compensation for the huge damage to our group.”

The impending retraction comes as a blow to anti-GMO campaigners, who have been leveraging the fact that the article appeared in a first-line journal put out by the prominent scientific publisher Elsevier. It has been cited 28 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Many scientists believe the journal badly botched the peer review process. The editor’s letter appeared to be carefully crafted, apparently in anticipation of a legal response by Séralini and the anti-GMO industry, which has brandished the paper and its accompanying pictures of cancer-riddled rodents over the past 14 months as ‘proof’ that genetically modified foods pose potentially serious health hazards, despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

“Unequivocally, the Editor-in-Chief found no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the data.” Wallace wrote. “However, there is legitimate cause for concern regarding both the number of animals in each study group and the particular strain selected. … This retraction comes after a thorough and time-consuming analysis of the published article and the data it reports, along with an investigation into the peer-review behind the article.”

Hayes outlined the peer review process, the international criticism the article prompted from the mainstream science community and the subsequent review and reasons behind the decision to retract.

The low number of animals had been identified as a cause for concern during the initial review process, but the peer-review decision ultimately weighed that the work still had merit despite this limitation. A more in-depth look at the raw data revealed that no definitive conclusions can be reached with this small sample size regarding the role of either NK603 or glyphosate in regards to overall mortality or tumor incidence. Given the known high incidence of tumors in the Sprague-Dawley rat, normal variability cannot be excluded as the cause of the higher mortality and incidence observed in the treated groups. Ultimately, the results presented (while not incorrect) are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology.

The paper came under fire from the moment it appeared. In what most journalists and scientists said was an outrageous abuse of the embargo system, Séralini demanded reporters to sign a non-disclosure agreement when the study was first being released in an attempt to limit criticism. The demand was designed to turn reporters into stenographers, wrote Ivan Oransky at Retraction Watch.

The journal article claimed that rats fed a diet containing NK603—a seed variety made tolerant to the spraying of glyphosate (Monsanto'sMonsanto's Roundup herbicide)—died earlier than those on a standard diet. The Séralini team reported that 50 percent of males and 70 percent of females died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group. The number of rats used in the study was too small to draw statistically meaningful conclusions. The study team also selected a breed of rat to use in the experiments in which 80 percent routinely develop cancers, further obscuring the results. Some of the rats fed GM corn outlived the control group, further confusing the picture.

The authors themselves now concede that the study had serious flaws, noting in the Criigen press release that “the data are inconclusive, due to the rat strain and the number of animals used.”

Despite the flaws and inconclusive results in the research, the anti-GMO movement, with Séralini and his pictures of twisted rodents as icons, began pressuring governments to take “precautionary” actions. The French prime minister said that, if its results were confirmed, his government would press for a European-wide ban on GMO maize. Russia suspended imports of the corn. Kenya, an African pioneer in GM technology, issued an indefinite ban all GM crops.

There are two parts to the peer review process. Journals send out articles to a limited number of scientists for comment. After publication, the gauntlet continues as studies undergo scrutiny from the mainstream science community. It’s in this court that the Séralini paper failed so miserably.

Geneticists and the general science community were first out of the block with withering critiques, pointing out more than a dozen problems with the study. The London-based Science Media Centre, which assists reporters when major science news breaks, posted an entire page of criticisms, including its poor design, the use of tumor prone rodents, the lack of standard controls, the small sample size and the selective presentation of data.

“The study appeared to sweep aside all known benchmarks of scientific good practice and, more importantly, to ignore the minimal standards of scientific and ethical conduct in particular concerning the humane treatment of experimental animals,” concluded a prominent group of scientists in Transgenic Review. Normally, rodents who develop tumors in experiments are humanely euthanized but in this case they were kept alive and the tumors allowed to grow to grotesque size, and then featured in press releases. None of the results depended on the size of their tumors or how long they lived after the tumor appeared. This unethical treatment of animals was a direct violation of accepted research protocol and was by itself grounds for the article being rejected initially or withdrawn.

Quoting the EFSA: “The study as reported by Séralini et al. was found to be inadequately designed, analysed and reported…. Taking into consideration Member States’ assessments and the authors’ answer to critics, EFSA finds that the study as reported by Séralini et al. is of insufficient scientific quality for safety assessments.”

As Oransky notes, there has been pressure on the journal to retract the study since publication, along with other criticisms and an exchange of letters in the journal. Ignoring the groundswell, anti-GMO journalists and campaigners and crop biotechnology skeptics alike have recklessly promoted the findings. Patrick Holden, head of the UK-based Sustainable Food Trust, which positions itself as a balanced moderate in this controversy, hosted a London press briefing to hype the results and posted an apologia for it on GMO Seralini, the brash pro-Séralini website.

Anti-biotechnology journalists were equally precipitous. Within hours of the study’s release, the foodie writer Michael Pollan, who has dissimulated on the GMO issue for years, tweeted that it was possibly the first … long-term feeding study of GM crops and Round-Up” and he touted it for possibly finding “serious health problems.” In fact, numerous long-term GMO feeding studies assessing the same products (NK603 and Roundup) or similar ones have not found any negative food safety impacts. A few months before the publication of the disputed French research, a team of scientists at the University of Nottingham School of Biosciences released a review of 12 long-term studies (up to two years) and 12 multi-generational studies (up to 5 generations) of GM foods, concluding there is no evidence of health hazards.

Pollan subsequently tweeted a pro-Séralini apologia from the Orwellian named Independent Science News, a well-known pro-organic, anti-GMO front, attacking mainstream scientists for contending that the study was “shoddy.”

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What a rediculous comment. You assume that the scientific magazine was representative of the scientific community. How could you possibly derive that from this article? Those that did the study did the due diligence. Those that are attempting to snuff it bring hundreds of billions and enormous power against them. You just sided with those that profit from this highly questionable product. You either didn’t read the article, didn’t understand the subject, or are a shill for the industry.

So it is not possible that others can read the article and simply disagree with you? Your statement is a false dichotomy (tricotomy?) Mark. Given the incredibly small population used in the experiment, the pro cancer nature of the specimens used, and the inability for anyone else to replicate the experiment with even remotely similar results, it is beyond reasonable to state that the paper is not worthy of believing. If you so strongly believe the results of this one paper, then I would suggest that you replicate the experiment in such a way that fixes the errors that occurred during the original process, and then post your results. Given the amount of anti-GMO funding that exists in the status quo, it shouldn’t be hard to do this. In the meantime, I would refrain from insulting others, it tends to diminish the effects of your arguments substantially.

Isn’t it true that Seralini’s used the same protocol as the Monsanto study however tested more parameters more frequently. The rats were studied much longer, a full two year average life-time instead of just 90 days in the Monsanto study. The first tumors appeared at 4 to7 months into the study. The study was also done with the highest number of rats ever measured in a standard GMO diet study. They tested for the first time 3 doses (rather than two in the usual 90 day long protocols) of the GMO maize alone, the GMO maize treated with Roundup, and Roundup alone at very low environmentally relevant doses starting below the range of levels permitted by regulatory authorities in drinking water and in GM feed.”

I also believe the study concluded, “In females, all treated groups died 2–3 times more than controls, and more rapidly. This difference was visible in 3 male groups fed GMOs…Females developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than and before controls; the pituitary was the second most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by GMO and Roundup treatments. In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5–5.5 times higher. This pathology was confirmed by optic and transmission electron microscopy. Marked and severe kidney nephropathies were also generally 1.3–2.3 greater. Males presented 4 times more large palpable tumors than controls…””

Based on these findings, the only responsible next step should be an independent (non industry) study to be requested by the FDA.

It appears three month rat studies just aren’t adequate to insure GMO safety.

Good point. Follow research is always a good thing. That’s how science works. That said: (1) Seralini’s study did not have enough rats to be statistically significant, which is one reason (among many reasons it was forcibly retracted). (2) Seralini’s group said it was continuing these experiments when it finalized the research data in the now discredited study. That was two years ago (when it was first submitted to a journal). Now, he refuses to release the new data. If it in fact supported his flawed study, he would have released them. Speaks for itself. (3) French government is funding independent studies trying to replicate the study. Should be out in about a year, I would guess. By all reports, Seralini’s data does not hold up..but we will know definitively soon enough. (4) Other long term studies have been done on GMOS and this particular GMO and not one–not one–found what Seralini did even in his limited (and statistically inconclusive) sample size

Yes, any science minded person would welcome more research. If new information should come that points to a different conclusion, that’s great–that’s what science is about. But there is absolutely no scientific justification to keep an ethically questionable and statistically meaningless study in the data banks. Bad science is bad science. As professionally done studies are done, they become part of the public record. I suggest you check the collected studies highlighted in the Italian summary, about 650 of which are in the Genera database at Biofortified.org.

In scientific studies, you don’t claim effects that aren’t statistically significant. In the Seralini study, there are no significant effects on time to death nor tumor incidence. There appear to be random variations in a lot of parameters studied, because there is no dose-response and average responses may be up or down. The original fault of the Seralini study was a very poor design, with inadequate controls, but then made much worse, in my opinion, by claiming “effects” based on the pre-conceived notion that GMO products and Roundup are bad.

I know that Seralini said publicly that they were continuing the studies. He submitted his data to the journal almost two years ago, so by now he has far more robust data. My guess is the randomness that the first set of data reflected is coming into sharper focus, and he will never release the new data as it will confirm that he is the shyster that he appears to be. Also, when the study was published, a prominent French research center–can’t recall which one it was–said it was going to try to replicate the study, but with more rats, as the numbers used by Seralini were absurd, and of course proved nothing. Not sure if that study went forward. If it did, it would take another two years to know what happened as the data would have to be crunched and vetted. That said, as there are no plausible biological mechanisms in the studied GMO corn to cause unique tumors in rats–none–don’t hold your breath in anticipation of finding anything. These experiments are a total waste of money, as the entire genetics establishment knows. Doing them is about scare mongering mollification, and nothing more.